King. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat. Ros. In private then. King. I am best pleased with that. [They converse apart, Biron. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee. Prin. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three. Biron. Nay then, two treys, (an if you grow so nice,) Metheglin, wort, and malmsey.-Well run, dice! There's half a dozen sweets. Prin. Seventh sweet, adieu! Since you can cog,' I'll play no more with you. Let it not be sweet. Gall? Bitter. Biron. Thou griev'st my gall. Prin. Biron. Dum. Will you Mar. Name it. Dum. Mar. Therefore meet. [They converse apart. vouchsafe with me to change a word? Fair lady, Take that for your fair lady. Dum. Say you so? Fair lord, Please it you, As much in private, and I'll bid adieu. [They converse apart. Kath. What, was your visor made without a tongue? Long. I know the reason, lady, why you ask. And would afford my speechless visor half. Kath. Veal, quoth the Dutchman.-Is not veal a Kath. 1 To cog is to lie or cheat; hence, to cog the dice Long. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks! Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so. Kath. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow. Long. One word in private with you, ere I die. Kath. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry [They converse apart Boyet. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; So sensible Above the sense of sense. Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings, Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things. Ros. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off. wits. Biron. By Heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff! King. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple [Exeunt King, Lords, MOTH, Music, and Attendants. Prin. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites.Are these the breed of wits so wondered at? Boyet. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puffed out. Ros. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat. Prin. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout! Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night? Or ever, but in visors, show their faces? This pert Birón was out of countenance quite. Ros. O! They were all in lamentable cases! The king was weeping-ripe for a good word. Prin. Birón did swear himself out of all suit. Mar. Dumain was at my service, and his sword. No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute. Kath. Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart; And trow you what he called me? 1 Well-liking is the same as well-conditioned, fat. 2 No point; a quibble on the French adverb of negation, as before, Act ii. Sc. 1. Prin. Kath. Yes, in good faith. Prin. Qualm, perhaps. Go, sickness, as thou art! Ros. Well, better wits have worn plain statute caps.1 But will you hear? The king is my love sworn. In their own shapes; for it can never be, Boyet. They will, they will, God knows, And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows. Therefore, change favors; and, when they repair, Blow like sweet roses in this summer air. 2 Prin. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood. Boyet. Fair ladies, masked, are roses in their bud. Dismasked, their damask sweet commixture shown, Are angels veiling clouds,3 or roses blown. Prin. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do, Ros. Good madam, if by me you'll be advised, Should be presented at our tent to us. 1 An act was passed the 13th of Elizabeth (1571) "for the continuance of making and wearing woollen caps, in behalf of the trade of cappers, providing that all above the age of six years (except the nobility and some others) should, on Sabbath days and holidays, wear caps of wool, knit, thicked, and dressed in England, upon penalty of ten groats." 2 Features, countenances. 3 Ladies unmasked are like angels veiling clouds, or letting those clouds which obscured their brightness sink before them. Boyet. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand Prin. Whip to our tents, as roes run over land. [Exeunt Princess, Ros., KATH., and MARIA. Enter the King, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, în their proper habits. King. Fair sir, God save you! Where is the princess? Boyet. Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty, Command me any service to her thither? King. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word. Boyet. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. [Exit. Biron. This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when Jove doth please. He is wit's pedler, and retails his wares At wakes and wassels,' meetings, markets, fairs; And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show. This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve: Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve. He can carve too, and lisp.. Why this is he That kissed away his hand in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honorable terms; nay, he can sing A mean 2 most meanly; and, in ushering, Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet, The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet. This is the flower that smiles on every one, 3 To show his teeth as white as whales bone; Wassels; festive meetings, drinking-bouts; from the Saxon washæl, be in health, which was the form of drinking a health; the customary answer to which was drine-hæl, I drink your health. The wasselcup, wassel-bowl, wassel-bread, wassel-candle, were all aids or accompaniments to festivity. 2 The tenor in music. 3 Whales bone; the Saxon genitive case. It is a common comparison in the old poets. This bone was the tooth of the horse-whale, morse, or walrus, now superseded by ivory. And consciences that will not die in debt, King. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart, That put Armado's page out of his part! Enter the Princess, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, and Attendants. Biron. See where it comes!-Behavior, what wert thou, Till this man showed thee? and what art thou now? VOW. Nor God, nor I, delight in perjured men. King. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke ; For virtue's office never breaks men's troth. As the unsullied lily, I protest, A world of torments though I should endure, guest; I would not yield to be your house's So much I hate a breaking-cause to be Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity. King. O, you have lived in desolation here, Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame. Prin. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear; We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game. A mess of Russians left us but of late. King. How, madam? Russians? Prin. Ay, in truth, my lord Trim gallants, full of courtship, and of state. |